


5 things Jenny Calendar learned about Rupert Giles and 1 thing she learned about herself

by summers-maclay-lehane (ofstormsandwolves)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24337402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofstormsandwolves/pseuds/summers-maclay-lehane
Summary: There are five times in Jenny Calendar's life when she discovers something new about Rupert Giles. But there's one time she discovers something new about herself...
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	5 things Jenny Calendar learned about Rupert Giles and 1 thing she learned about herself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Eclectic_Bookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/gifts).



> References to I Robot, You Jane, Prophecy Girl, Uncle Dead and the Fourth of July (How I Survived My Summer Vacation), The Dark Age, Innocence, & Passion

_Rupert Giles was infuriatingly charming_

  
One of the first things Jenny Calendar learned about Rupert Giles, besides his hatred of all things electronic, was that he was utterly, infuriatingly charming. And the most frustrating part of all was the fact he didn’t even seem to realise it.

Since the business with the demon in the computer, Jenny and Rupert had reached a sort of truce. He had admitted that, perhaps, knowledge of computers and technology could be beneficial from time to time, and she had admitted that if she hadn’t insisted on scanning the library books in the first place, Moloch probably wouldn’t have escaped. That didn’t mean that she was accepting responsibility, however, particularly as Rupert should have checked the books before scanning. That was his job, after all, as the school librarian.

But they were friendlier to each other now, when they saw each other in the faculty lounge. Just last week, Rupert had made Jenny a coffee when he saw her enter the room. It had been exactly how she liked it. She tried not to dwell too much on that, because Rupert getting her coffee right meant he’d been watching her, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that. Except that she’d started to notice he would give her a slightly hesitant smile when she entered a room, and that he would make his excuses to go and talk to her rather than whichever teacher he was currently stuck with. Rupert Giles, as a rule, didn’t mingle much with the other teachers, but he did for her.  


He would ask about her classes, despite understanding very little of what she told him, and she would ask about homework club. As far as she could tell, only Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander Harris attended, but Rupert seemed very fond of the children. Jenny could vaguely see why, particularly with Willow. The girl was bright and bubbly and loved to learn, and Rupert would talk about the girl with a fond smile on his face whenever she was brought up. He would complain about Xander, but with a slight warmth to his voice that he’d probably deny if Jenny ever dared point it out. 

But Jenny noticed that Rupert reacted most when Buffy was brought up. It was always somewhere between fondness, amusement, and exasperation, and he talked repeatedly about how she was clearly a bright girl and he just wished that she showed that in her grades. Jenny had no idea why Rupert was so taken by her, as the girl didn’t strike her as the reading sort. Then again, had she been pressed to say who she thought Buffy Summers would most hang out with, Jenny would probably lean more towards Cordelia Chase than Willow Rosenberg. Perhaps Buffy had hidden talents that Jenny hadn’t seen; Rupert certainly seemed to believe so, as he complained about Buffy’s lack of focus when doing her homework. Jenny had even caught him once or twice trying to defend the girl to Flutie, and later Snyder, both of whom had chalked the girl up to being a trouble maker. But Rupert obviously saw potential in her, and it was almost like he’d taken the girl under his wing.

And that brought Jenny right back to Rupert Giles being incredibly, frustratingly charming. His apparent concern for Buffy’s grades, the look of pride when Jenny told him how well Willow was doing in class, his somewhat-hidden fondness for Xander hanging out in the library... It was rare, in Sunnydale High, to find a faculty member so invested in the students, and between that and the small embarrassed smiles, the morning coffee he’d made her, and the stuttered questions about her classes, Jenny Calendar couldn’t help but find the man charming.

Now Jenny thought about it, there was something even worse than Rupert being unaware of his own charm. And that was that she didn’t hate it.

  


_Rupert Giles- despite his fuddy-duddy outlook- was not a typical Watcher_

  
Learning that Buffy Summers was the Slayer actually explained a lot. It also, Jenny supposed, went a little way to explaining Rupert Giles. But not entirely. See, Jenny knew about Slayers, and Watchers, and how the whole ‘Chosen One’ worked. She had never actually met a Slayer, or a Watcher, but she’d always expected the Watchers to be stern and tense and scowling, while the Slayers were obvious warriors, with the height and poise to show for it. Instead, there was Rupert, who stumbled and stammered his way through approximately half of what came out of his mouth to her; and Buffy, who Jenny was fairly certain had very briefly been in the Sunnydale High cheerleading team.

Ok, so Rupert could be rather quite serious at times, and his tweed suits certainly screamed Watcher when Jenny stopped to think about it. Plus, his being Watchers Council could explain his fierce defensiveness of books, as well as his fear of all things technological. But what Jenny hadn’t expected was for a Watcher to allow their Slayer to have a social life, to involve friends in the Slayer’s business. And she certainly hadn’t expected a Watcher to become so wholeheartedly invested in their Slayer on an emotional level.

From what Jenny understood, Watchers were meant to be detached. Cool, calm, collected; delivering orders that the Slayer must follow. And, as far as Jenny knew, Watchers never seemed to get involved in fights. That was the Slayer’s job.

But she was beginning to realise that, despite the tweed and the books and the often-stern behaviour, Rupert Giles was not a typical Watcher. And nothing made that more apparent than his insistence he wasn’t going to warn Buffy about the Anointed One.

“What do you mean?” Jenny demanded, even as Rupert surveyed the weapons he’d retrieved from the book cage.

“Buffy’s not going to face the Master,” Rupert responded with a calm that made Jenny’s blood run cold. “I am.”

Buffy arrived then, and Jenny could only watch as the Slayer and the Watcher argued it out.

“Buffy, I’m not gonna send you out there to die,” Rupert said, and it sounded to Jenny like he had had some time to think about it, like they were talking about a previous conversation she hadn’t been privy to. “Now, you were right. I- I’ve waded around in these old books for so long, I’ve forgotten what the real world is like. I- It’s time I found out.”

A horrible sense of dread was growing in the pit of Jenny’s stomach, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. What Rupert was talking about was... Was suicide, wasn’t it? And Buffy seemed to think so too.

“You’re still not going up against the Master.” The girl was quiet, calm, and Jenny felt like screaming at the pair of them.

There they were, in the middle of a high school library, debating which one of them should sacrifice themselves that night. And Jenny knew- she _knew_ \- that if the Watchers Council ever discovered Rupert had had such an argument that he would lose his job. But he didn’t back down.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said, and Jenny knew he was telling the truth. His voice was strong, his jaw set as he met Buffy’s gaze.

 _Oh my god_ , Jenny thought, _he’s going to do it_. She was reminded of how Rupert had talked about Buffy, even before Jenny realised what their connection was. Fondness and pride, and a little bit of exasperation and annoyance, all spilling over as Rupert talked about Buffy’s latest mishap, or her inability to grasp Shakespeare, or how he’d _offered_ to help with her history assignment but she’d been adamant she could do it alone. And Jenny knew that it would take a miracle to stop Rupert Giles from dying for his Slayer, even if the Council would forbid it.

“That’s not how it goes,” Buffy was arguing. “I’m the Slayer.”

“I don’t care what the books say,” Rupert shot back, and Jenny could see his carefully crafted composure crumbling under the pressure. “I defy prophecy, and I am going. There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

Buffy met his gaze. “I know.”

It turned out they didn’t need a miracle to stop Rupert, just a Slayer willing to knock him out. No, Rupert Giles wasn’t a typical Watcher, not when he was so willing to die in his Slayer’s place. And Jenny found that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with that new little bit of knowledge.

  


_Rupert Giles could sometimes be a little clueless_

  
Cleaning blood off of Rupert’s face wasn’t the way Jenny had expected her Fourth of July to end.

“I can’t believe he _hit_ you, Rupert!”

Rupert shrugged. “Samson Murray was a violent man, even before being reanimated. I probably should have seen it coming. Lord knows I’ve had enough practice trying to avoid being hit by Buffy,” he said, before wincing. 

Jenny gave him an incredulous look. “You know, that really doesn’t reassure me?”

“Doesn’t it?” Rupert asked, looking baffled. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m getting very good at dodging her punches too.”

“That doesn’t reassure me, either,” Jenny told him as she wiped off the last of the blood.

Rupert moved his jaw experimentally and gingerly ran his tongue over his teeth. “Nothing seems loose, so that’s good.”

“The uniform’s a loss, though.” Jenny gave a sad look at the Allied Forces Commander uniform he was still wearing.

“Yes,” Rupert said, sounding as sad as Jenny felt. “I won’t be getting my deposit back.”

The two of them descended into silence, sitting in the dark of the library together. 

“You know,” Jenny said after a long moment, “when I invited you to the Fourth of July parade, I hadn’t expected it to be anything more than a nice afternoon out.”

“Well,” Rupert responded uncertainly, “it wasn’t that bad. Discounting the zombies, of course.” He gave her a slightly odd look then.

Jenny frowned at him. “What? Rupert, what’s that look for?”

“You... You kissed me,” he said, and there was a pleased little smile on his face. “Twice!”

Jenny arched an eyebrow at him, trying to ignore the way her cheeks heated up. “And? Do you wish I hadn’t?”

“No! I- I mean...” Rupert trailed off as he flushed red, and Jenny laughed. “I just... Why, Jenny?

She moved to pack away the first aid items they hadn’t ended up needing, desperate for a reason to avoid his gaze. “Are we talking about the kiss on the cheek, or...?”

“Either,” Rupert said, voice quiet. “Both.”

She shrugged. “The kiss on the cheek was because I felt like it,” she admitted softly. “And the other kiss... Like I said, it was for good luck.”

“Well,” Rupert said, a hesitant smile on his face. “It worked splendidly.”

Jenny gave him a wry look. “Rupert, you got punched by a zombie.”

“I did,” he agreed, still wearing that silly little smile. “But he didn’t kill me. So your kiss must have worked.”

She shook her head, smiling as she did so, but then she sobered. “Rupert... Are you sure you’re ok with what happened tonight? Between us?”

“Are you?” he countered. “Because I, I don’t want to speak out of turn.”

“I kissed you, remember?” Jenny reminded him with a small frown. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t wanted to.”

“Oh,” Rupert said, frowning. “I suppose not.” He blinked up at her, still sat in the chair. “What does that mean, then?”

Jenny didn’t know what to say to that. For a very clever, well-read man, apparently he sometimes needed obvious things spelled out to him. She was starting to wonder how Buffy, Willow, and Xander coped.

“What do you think it means, Rupert?”

“I... I don’t know,” he admitted, and his voice sounded so incredibly small and lost that Jenny took pity on him.

She grasped his hands, tugged him to his feet, and smiled gently at him. “It means we should do this again sometime.”

“F- Fight zombies together?” Rupert asked with a furrowed brow.

Jenny very nearly laughed, and she was very pleased that she didn’t. “Yeah,” she said with a small nod. “Something like that.”

Then, she pressed another kiss to his cheek and sauntered out of the library.

  


_Rupert Giles wasn’t perfect_

  
“Rupert, can I ask you something?” Jenny asked during the tense car journey back to her place.

She felt Rupert’s confused gaze on her, but she didn’t look over.

“Of course,” came his confused reply.

“Why are you so harsh on the children, given what you did? The way you talk sometimes, when Buffy makes a poor decision, or Xander acts immaturely... You make them think that you’re perfect, that you’ve always been perfect.”

Rupert’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “I have done no such thing.”

“But you have,” Jenny protested, glancing over at him. His jaw was clenched, and she knew that a car perhaps wasn’t the best place for the conversation, but she pressed on anyway. “Buffy’s probably never even stopped to think that you were ever anything other than a Watcher; Xander and Willow have only ever seen you as a librarian and a Watcher. Those kids look up to you, and you don’t let them see that you’re a person.”

“I _never_ said I was perfect, Jenny,” Rupert said, and his voice was low and angry, and the words stung. 

They stung because Jenny knew they were true. He had never claimed that he had been a perfect child, followed by a perfect teenager, followed by a perfect adult. Jenny had simply assumed. And she was angry about that, because there was a part of her that wanted him to be perfect. Perfect, loyal Rupert, who was just as readily available to help his Slayer with her history essay as with her demon research. 

If Rupert wasn’t perfect, who was?

Jenny knew she wasn’t. And Jenny knew she was being as hypocritical as she was hinting at Rupert being. She didn’t know everything about his life, and he didn’t know everything about hers. Just as she had felt no real need to burden him with the truth of her family’s past, perhaps he had felt the same about his rebellious period twenty years ago?

“I... I understand that, perhaps, I can seem a little hard on the children,” Rupert said quietly, and his tone had softened a little but not by much. “But they have to learn. Buffy especially so. She’s the Slayer, and there is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with that.” He let out a breath. “I was young, and, and foolish, when the incident with Eyghon happened. I... I lost a friend, because I thought I was- because I thought we were untouchable. Buffy cannot afford to make the same mistakes I did.”

Jenny stared out the car window for several long moments. “It’s... It’s not just about the children, Rupert. We were all blindsided by this, including me.”

Rupert’s eyes were on her, but Jenny didn’t look round. He sighed quietly. “I never wanted you to find out about my past in this way.”

Houses raced by outside the window, and Jenny watched them. “Did you want me to find out about your past at all?” 

She knew her tone was cold, colder than it perhaps should have been given that she knew Rupert was struggling. But Jenny _hurt_ , both inside and out, and she was tired and miserable and achy. A tiny, nagging voice in the back of her head was reminding her of her own secrets, but she forced it down. She was too tired to deal with it.

“I... I suppose I never really knew how to put it into words,” Rupert told her, brow furrowed. “I think... I think I feared how you would react.” 

His gaze was back on the road, and Jenny turned her head to look at him. His expression was sad, and a little bit resigned.

“I suppose I was right to be concerned.” He let out a breath. “I’ll drop you at your apartment.”

Rupert Giles wasn’t perfect. He had flaws, and secrets, and a whole other life he had once lived. But then again, so did Jenny.

  


_Rupert Giles wore anger well_

  
She didn’t know quite what she had expected to happen, once the truth came out. Buffy was angry with her, Willow was upset, Xander seemed uncertain about whether he should be despising her or thanking her for getting rid of Angel. And Rupert...

Rupert wore anger well, Jenny realised. It suited him, in a strange way. It made him look more like the Watcher she had expected him to be. All sharp edges and scowls, and clipped, scathing words delivered in a harsh and dismissive tone. But it still hurt when he dismissed her from helping with preparations.

“She just said get out.”

Rupert didn’t even look at Jenny when he spoke, but she saw how Buffy looked up to her Watcher. And the odd thing was, watching the pair of them from the doorway, Jenny couldn’t tell if she was being sent away for Buffy’s benefit or Rupert’s. 

Rupert was, of course, angry at her. He was angry that she had kept secrets from him, even though at the time they had felt inconsequential. Unlike the rest of her family, Jenny Calendar had never been out for vengeance against Angel. As a result, she hadn’t seen the necessity of revealing her family secrets to Rupert, or to anyone else, but that didn’t stop them all from being angry at her.

But as Buffy looked up to her Watcher, apparently surprised at what Rupert had just said, Jenny found that she couldn’t help but draw the conclusion that Rupert was choosing his side. He was making it clear, to himself, to Jenny, and to Buffy; he was choosing his Slayer over his love.

And maybe that explained why he seemed so much more like a Watcher now that he was all hard edges and anger. Why the anger he wore fit him just as well as his tweed jacket, or his glasses. It all came back to his Slayer. The Slayer he had been so willing to die for just last year. The Slayer he fought hard for, who he broke the rules for time and time again. Rupert Giles, no matter how unconventional, was a Watcher who put his Slayer first. And perhaps that was where the source of his anger lay; not with Jenny keeping secrets from him, but with Jenny putting his Slayer in danger.

It didn’t matter that she had had no idea Angel could lose his soul, didn’t matter that she had only ever been on the fringes of her family’s vengeance plans. What mattered was that Jenny had put Buffy in danger by not coming clean about who she was or how much of a threat Angel posed, and there was a good chance that Rupert would never forgive her for it.

Jenny couldn’t blame him. She did as Rupert and Buffy asked, and didn’t go to face Angelus with them.

  


_Jenny Calendar would do anything to fix things with Rupert and the children_

  
A year and a half previously, Jenny Calendar wouldn’t have cared what most people thought of her. But that seemed like a lifetime ago, and she was starting to realise that she wouldn’t have cared because she didn’t have anybody she cared about. That was, until Rupert and the children.

Rupert and the children had wormed their way into her heart, so slowly that she hadn’t even realised it until it had been too late. It hadn’t been until the business with Angel had happened, and Buffy and Rupert had turned against her. And that was how Jenny Calendar learned a very important lesson about herself; she would do anything to fix things between herself and Rupert and the children.

So she set to work researching, scrounging up every last piece of information she could get her hands on. If there was any way at all to restore Angel’s soul, she’d find it. She knew she couldn’t buy Rupert’s or Buffy’s forgiveness, but she also knew that this was perhaps the only way to make it clear to them that she was really, truly sorry.

Sure, she could apologise until she was blue in the face. But she knew that actions often spoke louder than words, and this was one of those circumstances. Apologising meant nothing if she didn’t even try to give Buffy back what she’d lost. And while patching things up with Rupert would be trickier, she needed to prove to him that she didn’t see Buffy as collateral damage.

She spent entire nights researching, on her computer and with books. She didn’t dare approach Rupert or Buffy though, not until she knew for certain that she had leads. The last thing she wanted to do was get their hopes up only to let them down again.

But finally, after god knew how many hours researching, she had a breakthrough. Jenny felt her heart soar as she realised the implications. But still, when she saw Rupert at school that day, she said nothing. She gave him a book, implied she’d been reading up on a few things, and then totally and utterly embarrassed herself by admitting she’d fallen in love with him.

“Oh god. Is it too late to take that back?”

Rupert blinked at her. “Do you want to?”

Jenny considered his question for a moment. “I just wanna be right with you. I don’t expect more. I just want so badly to make all this up to you.”

“I understand,” Rupert responded, and his voice was soft and almost reassuring. “But I’m not the one you need to make it up to.” He gave her a small smile then, that made her heart skip a beat, and he held up the book. “Thank you for the book.”

Jenny hadn’t been able to quite stop thinking about Rupert’s words for the rest of the day. He hadn’t run a mile when she’d confessed to loving him. He hadn’t stuttered or stammered or blushed. He’d been gentle but firm; Buffy came first. He wouldn’t be making any sort of move, either to or away from Jenny, without Buffy’s say so. 

She had known, really, that it would probably all come down to Buffy. And, if anything, Jenny found it touching that Rupert was so concerned about his Slayer. So, buoyed by the new hope the conversation with Rupert had sparked, she headed to the magic shop that evening for the final supplies she needed.

The Orb of Thesulah. She still had to pin her hopes on her computer program working out to translate the ritual, but frankly she was more concerned with actually getting hold of the Orb. The last thing Jenny wanted was to have everything ready to go only to find she couldn’t get the Orb anywhere.

“By the way...”

The shopkeeper’s words made Jenny look back.

“Not that it's any of my business, really, but, uh, what are you planning on conjuring up? If you can decipher the text?”

“A present for a friend of mine.” Jenny held up the Orb, examined it.

The shopkeeper frowned. “Really? What are you gonna give him?”

The Orb in Jenny’s hand glowed, and she smiled. “His soul.”


End file.
